Robert Herbert was appointed Premier and Colonial Secretary following the first elections held in the new colony of Queensland in May 1860.

When the Crown Colony of Queensland was established in 1859 it had a population of 25,000 people, Brisbane having 7,000 inhabitants, fourteen churches, thirteen public-houses, and twelve policemen. Its organisation differed from that of the other colonies in that the British Colonial Office had set up the new colony with the prospect of immediate responsible government. When Governor Bowen was appointed, the Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Colonies, authorised him to select a private secretary who could become the colonial secretary of Queensland and ‘independent of local influences.’

With Sir George Bowen when he arrived on 9 December was a young Robert George Wyndham Herbert, who accompanied Bowen as his private secretary and Queensland’s possible future Colonial Secretary. Herbert was a cousin to the Earl of Carnarvon, a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and a lawyer.  Governor Bowen summed up the initial state of affairs in Queensland in a letter to a friend in June 1860:

 At the first start of all other Colonies the Governor has been assisted by a Nominee Council of experienced officials… [he] has been supported by an armed force, and he has been authorised to draw, at least at the beginning, on the Imperial Treasury for the expenses of the Public Service. But I was an autocrat, the sole source of authority here, without a single soldier or without a single shilling…I started with just 7d. in the Treasury, but a thief, supposing, I fancy, that I should have been furnished with some funds for the outfit—so to speak—of the new State, broke into the Treasury a few nights after my arrival and carried off the 7d.  (George Bowen to Chichester Fortescue, 6 June, 1860)

Robert Herbert’s job was not a sinecure. He was informed by the British Colonial Office he would only hold the position if he secured election to the Legislative Assembly and enough votes in the House. In the elections held in May 1860 Herbert stood for three constituencies and was returned unopposed in all three. He chose to stand for Leichhardt. When Parliament met on 22 May there was really no-one to challenge his appointment as Premier, supported as he was by both the Governor and the press. He was still only 28.

After 22 May 1860, Queensland had a government with a Premier who served as Colonial Secretary and who was responsible for all matters affecting the colony that were not the responsibility of the Treasurer or the Attorney General. Herbert’s office was in the building on William Street which had previously housed the Commissariat Officers. It became known henceforth as the Colonial Secretary’s Office.  Herbert never formed or headed a political party—and though often seen as being a conduit for the comparatively activist governor, regularly reporting to the public in the newspaper with the words By his Excellency’s command—he had the skills to head a not-easy parliament for six years, including negotiating the financial settlement with New South Wales, getting Acts passed, and shaping the administration of Queensland. In their book The Engine Room of Government: Ross Laurie and others note that Herbert’s time as Colonial Secretary stands as the longest, continuous time in the role, and that he was considered a better administrator than a politician. His letters to his mother and sister indicated the long hours he worked when Parliament was in session, often from six a.m. one morning to one a.m. the following.

Simon Miller from the State Library of Queensland has summed Herbert up with:

It was probably helpful that Herbert had become a foundation member of the Queensland Club and also accepted chairmanship of the Brisbane Hospital Board.  He was known for his charm of manner and conversation and his considerate reception of all comers.  He was an aristocratic outsider in a new colony, who dressed carefully and spoke quietly but also enjoyed an active, outdoor existence.  Herbert was not a charismatic speaker.  He was quite short; his forehead was high and his head noticeably large in proportion to his body.  Being short-sighted, he sometimes used a monocle, which looked like some affectation.  His voice was soft and his manner invariably smooth and polite.  He prevailed in the Queensland parliament because of his intellect and administrative ability and also because of the lack of any significant opposition.

Robert Herbert, together with John Bramston, an early school friend of Herbert’s who was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1861, purchased 50 acres (20.2 hectares) between Victoria Park and Breakfast Creek. Here they established ‘Herston’, the stone house and productive property from which the suburb later derived its name.  They both loved rowing and camping and horse racing.  Herbert also invested in cotton growing and in a sheep station in the Burdekin area.

Robert Herbert’s government was always in debt. He depended on loans to ensure the continuation of capital works thought important at that stage of the colony’s life.  Herbert grew disillusioned with Queensland politics and handed the premiership to Arthur Macalister in February 1866. The new premier faced financial difficulties when seeking yet another new loan, this time with the British Agra and Masterman’s Bank, which itself was in trouble.  Macalister resigned, Bowen recalled Herbert as a short term Premier to defuse the situation. This he was able to do by securing loans from southern and local banks to tide the government over its troubles.  He was still able to leave the colony as planned on 20 August 1866, still only 35, though not without an unfriendly blast from the local press. The Brisbane Courier wrote,  ‘There will be a general feeling of relief amongst all those who have resided long enough in the colony to know what the course pursued by Mr. HERBERT has been, to hear that he has really left our shores.’ (Brisbane Courier,  23 August 1866, p. 2.)

Robert George Wyndham Herbert had an honourable career ahead in England, eventually serving as permanent under-secretary in the Colonial Office for 21 years, and being knighted.  The office of Queensland premier and colonial secretary moved from its offices in William Street to the first stage of the new Treasury Building in 1889.

Sources

Miller, Simon (2013).  “Who was Robert George Wyndham Herbert?” http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2013/06/12/who-was-robert-george-wyndham-herbert/ (12 June, 2013)

Scott, J; Laurie, R; Stevens, B; Weller, P ( 2001 ) Creating the Colonial Secretary’s Office: Bowen, Herbert and Moriarty. The Engine Room of Government 1859 – 2001. University of Queensland Press

Additional Reading

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Robert Herbert

‘Dr. Cooper is bringing out a motor car but nothing will ever be to me what a horse is.’ Mary Bedford in a letter quoted in the Queenslander, 7 January 1905, p. 6.

Two notable residents of George Street in the early twentieth century were (Mary) Josephine Bedford and Dr Lilian Cooper.

Born in England in 1861, the niece of Admiral Sir Frederick George Denham Bedford GCB, Governor of Western Australia 1903-1909, Josephine Bedford arrived in Brisbane in 1891 with her long-time friend, Dr Lilian Cooper, the first registered female doctor in Queensland. During the course of the next sixty years, as well as assisting Cooper, Bedford would pursue an interest in improving the welfare of Queensland’s women and children.

Josephine Bedford had an early involvement in many organisations we now consider long-established. She was a committee member of the Queensland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty. She was associated in 1905 with the establishment of the Queensland branch of the National Council of Women, becoming its first provisional secretary. In the years before women had the right to vote she was a member of the Queensland Women’s Electoral League.

One cause close to her heart was the need for safe areas where children of the inner suburbs of Brisbane could play. She joined forces with a local minister, the Reverend Loyal Lincoln Wirt, to set up the Brisbane Institute of Social Service in 1906 in an abandoned tobacco factory on the corner of Brunswick and Ivory streets. Inside was established a crèche, kindergarten and boys and girls clubs. The following year Bedford was instrumental in the formation of the Creche and Kindergarten Association (now C & K, a Queensland wide organisation). By 1911 the C & K Association was independent of the Institute and four centres were operating in Brisbane.

Bedford focused her attention on the area of ‘supervised play’. As a result of the educational aspects of her tours in America and Europe ‘on furlough’ with Cooper, Bedford was instrumental in establishing the Playground Association in 1913.

With the declaration of war in 1914 Bedford and Cooper signed up with the Scottish Women’s Hospital for Foreign Service. By this time both women were aged in their fifties. They served high up in the mountains of Ostrovo in Serbian Macedonia between 1916 and 1917, under the command of Dr Agnes Bennett. While Dr Cooper worked to stabilise casualties just behind the Serbian front, either in field hospital tents or in abandoned buildings, Bedford, who became known as ‘Miss Spare Parts’, was head of the ambulance service ferrying the injured to safety. Both worked close to the battlefield. It was winter and it was cold and wet. Tracks were muddy and slippery. The drivers had icicles clinging to their faces and one ambulance was lost over the side of the road. Some ambulance drivers were killed.

Bedford and Cooper moved to Dubrovnik to an advance dressing station where Dr. Cooper, operated on any patient presented, including enemy patients. She received a decoration from Russia for this work, and in 1917 the King of Serbia awarded her the 4th Order of St Sava. Miss Bedford was awarded the 5th Order of St. Sava. Both women also served with the French Red Cross.  In 1918 they returned to Brisbane in time to continue their community welfare efforts and fight the Spanish flu epidemic that had returned with the servicemen.

Returning to her work with the Playground Association, Josephine Bedford was connected with the first playground established, in Paddington in 1918, as well as East Street Fortitude Valley in 1922 and Spring Hill in 1927. The Playground Association and the Creche and Kindergarten Association were successful in achieving local and state government sponsorship and funding, as well as money from various national philanthropic trust funds. The success of these two organisations can be attributed in part to the tireless and strategic work of Josephine Bedford. Throughout her life, Bedford worked toward alleviating the stress and poverty afflicting urban dwellers.

Josephine Bedford died on the 22 December, 1955. She had remained active in the Playground Association until her death. It is clear through her extensive letter writing, evident in archival files on both organisations, that they achieved their successes. Dr Lilian Cooper had died in 1947, leaving all her assets to Josephine. To commemorate the work of Queensland’s first female medical practitioner and her lifelong companion, Josephine Bedford donated their historic home, Old St Mary’s at Kangaroo Point, to the Sisters of Charity on the proviso that it be used to build a hospice for the sick and dying. Today’s St Vincent’s Private Hospital is located on the site.

On the 22 March 1956 a tree was planted in memory of Bedford, an honorary life member of the Queensland Women’s Historical Association, in the grounds of Newstead House.  The tree and memorial plaque still stand today.  In 1959 the Brisbane City Council agreed to the suggestion of the Playground and Recreation Association that the Spring Hill Playground be renamed the Bedford Playground in memory of Mary Josephine Bedford.

Australian Women’s Register

Bedford Playground http://eheritage.metadata.net/record/QLD-601786

A childcare centre closes in the Valley http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2011/12/06/a-childcare-centre-closes-in-the-valley-a-history-of-practical-sympathy/

Friends of Bedford Park http://friendsofbedfordpa.wixsite.com/friends-bedford-park/

Sources

Queenslander, 23 May 1891, p. 967.

Telegraph, 11 July 1918.

Additional Reading

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Lilian Cooper

Additional images

In 1891, Englishwoman Dr Lilian Cooper was invited to Brisbane to join the practice of Dr James Booth of South Brisbane. Within months of her arrival, she was the first woman doctor in Brisbane to have her own surgery.

Lilian Cooper was born in Chatham in England in 1861. In order to study medicine, Cooper had to pass the examination for the Society of Apothecaries, which she did in 1885. She was one of three women, came 21st out of 157, and was awarded an Honours II. She then studied for four years at the London School of Medicine for Women, where Dr Elizabeth Garret-Anderson was Dean. Subsequent to passing the conjoint examinations of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, received a licentiate from Edinburgh. Following the completion of her studies she worked for a general practitioner in Essex for six months.

With no woman doctor practicing in Queensland in the 1880s, Lady Musgrave, wife of the then Governor, tried unsuccessfully to have a woman doctor appointed to the Children’s Hospital. Dr James Booth of South Brisbane, evidently at the suggestion of a number of ladies, decided to engage a woman doctor to practice within his surgery. He corresponded with Lady Musgrave and Dr Garret-Anderson in England about the matter and left it to the two ladies to choose ‘a really good and competent medical woman’. They choose Dr Lilian Cooper, who arrived in Brisbane at the end of May 1891 accompanied by Josephine Bedford, a life long friend. On 9 June the first advertisement of consultation hours for Dr Lilian Cooper at Dr Booth’s surgery appeared in the Brisbane Courier.

Both Dr Cooper and Bedford roomed with Dr Booth and his wife at their Cordelia Street home. Dr Booth appears to have to introduced them to Brisbane. Bedford reportedly attended a meeting with Booth of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Children in June 1891. Although by 3 August Dr Cooper had opened consulting rooms in The Mansions on George Street, both Dr Cooper and Bedford continued to live with Dr Booth and his family in Cordelia Street, South Brisbane, Dr Cooper covering for Booth when he was away. By December 1891, with a practice in the Mansions and available for consultation at a new South Brisbane residence in Russell Street, not the Booth surgery, Dr Cooper was out on her own.

Life would have been very difficult for Dr Lilian Cooper in a profession so totally dominated by men but all reports are of her as a strong determined woman with a brisk no nonsense manner that would not be ignored.  Life was not all work. During this time  Dr Cooper and Miss Bedford attended social events such as Lady Norman’s receptions, played tennis matches with other ladies and even took part in a Christmas play.

Dr Lilian Cooper became a well-known figure leaving her surgery in the Mansions in her horse drawn sulky during the day, or by bicycle by night when she could be heard swearing as she hit potholes in the road. After the 1893 floods, Cooper and Bedford also lived at the Mansions. After an accident in late 1896 when, due to her driver’s inattention, Dr Lilian Cooper suffered a head injury after being thrown from the carriage, Josephine Bedford took over the role of driver.

In 1893 a sign of her acceptance came when she was elected to the Queensland Medical Society, and by 1910 she held Honorary positions at the Hospital for Sick Children, the Lady Lamington Hospital and the Mater Public Hospital. To further her professional knowledge, in 1911 -1912 Dr Cooper, with Josephine Bedford,  travelled to the United States  where she spent time at the Mayo Clinic, then on to London where she obtained her Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Durham. After her return, Dr Cooper continued at the Hospital for Sick Children, where she held the position of Consultant Surgeon, and the Mater Public Hospital where she took an active role in its development.

Dr Lilian was a woman of firsts. One of the first women in Queensland to own a motorcar, which she taught herself to drive and maintain, she was the only woman among the 18 founders of the Automobile Club (now the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland) in 1905. In 1909 Dr Cooper and Dr Hardie, her fellow Medical Officer at the Lady Lamington Women’s Hospital, were fined £3/3/6, a week’s wages for a workman, for speeding down Queen Street, Brisbane’s main thoroughfare, clocking over the 6 miles per hour limit.

The year 1907 saw Dr Cooper build a much larger property on the corner of George and Mary Streets (where the Department of Health and Home Affairs now stands). The surgery was on the ground floor and the residence on the first floor. It was the home of Dr Cooper and Miss Bedford until 1926, although leased when the two women were overseas – to Judge and MacNaughton in 1911 and to Queensland Premier Thomas Ryan and Mrs Ryan in 1916.

When war broke out in 1914, Dr Cooper was not allowed to join the Australian Forces overseas. In response, in September 1916 Dr Cooper and Josephine Bedford travelled to Ostrovo, 90 kms from Salonika in Northern Macedonia, to join the Scottish Women’s Hospitals who had set up a tent hospital there. Dr Cooper was one of the surgeons and Bedford ran the ambulance transport. They stayed for a year working in the most difficult conditions. The King of Serbia awarded them with the fourth and fifth class respectively of the Order of St Sava at the end of the war.

After her return from the war, Lilian continued with her practice and her work at the hospitals. In 1927 Dr Cooper and Miss Bedford moved from Auckland House (the house name for their residence at the corner of George and Mary Streets) to live at Old St Mary’s, Main Street, Kangaroo Point. Dr Cooper kept her practice in the city, locating it in the Transport & General Insurance Building. During the Depression years of the 1930s, Dr Cooper moved her practice to Old St Mary’s, until fully retiring in 1941. Lilian Cooper died at Old St Mary’s in 1947, leaving her estate to Josephine Bedford. When Bedford died a few years later she left Old St Mary’s to the Sisters of Charity. Mount Olivet Hospital (now St Vincent’s Private Hospital) was constructed on the site.

And finally…

The late Lorraine Cazalar of the Queensland Womens’ Historical Society noted, ‘One night when she found a Priest giving extreme unction to an accident victim she barked: “There’s no need for that. He is alive and he is going to stay alive”! After that it is recorded that the patient was too frightened to die!’

Sources

Queenslander, 23 May 1891, p. 967.

Telegraph, 11 July 1918.

Additional Reading

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Lilian Cooper

Additional images

Senator Neville Bonner was the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to Federal Parliament.

Neville Bonner was born in 1922 on an island in the Tweed River. His grandfather was an elder of the Jagara tribe. His early life was spent in Lismore, on the banks of the Richmond River. After his mother died, his grandmother took Neville and his younger brother back with her to Beaudesert in southern Queensland.

Neville Bonner worked as a rural labourer on properties across Queensland until 1946, when he commenced employment at the Palm Island Aboriginal settlement. He rose to the position of assistant settlement overseer before he moved to Ipswich in 1960. Following the 1967 referendum, which amended the Constitution to give the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws in relation to Aboriginals, Bonner joined the Liberal Party. In 1971 he became the first Aboriginal person to sit in the Commonwealth Parliament when he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Senate caused by the resignation of a Liberal senator for Queensland. He was subsequently returned at elections held in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1980.

Neville Bonner resigned from the Liberal Party after being dropped to third on the Liberal ticket. He ran as an independent, narrowly missing retaining his seat. Neville Bonner continued as a strong advocate for Indigenous rights until his death in 1999.

The Neville Bonner Building, constructed in Queen’s Wharf in 1998, is named for this Indigenous leader.

Additional Reading

Australian Biography website – Neville Bonner

National Archives of Australia, Neville Bonner Fact Sheet 231

Neville Bonner Building information on this website.

George Harris, after whom Harris Terrace on George Street is named, was a well-known merchant and politician in the first decades of Brisbane as a free settlement and then an independent colony.

George’s family emigrated from Britain in 1833, when George was aged two. His early years were spent in Victoria and New South Wales. Harris owed his start in the merchant business to his brother John, who began trading in South Brisbane in 1842. In 1848, when George was aged 17, he started working with his brother in the business. For the next few years the merchant business continued to expand with the addition of three new ships. All were destined for the trade between Moreton Bay and Sydney, carrying both goods and passengers. In 1850 the brothers’ premises at South Brisbane were chosen as the second Brisbane Bond store.

Unfortunately George Harris and John Harris did not make good partners and argued constantly, to the extent that George left briefly in 1852 to go to the gold fields in Bendigo. He returned in 1853 and again went into partnership with John, trading under the name of J and G Harris, general merchants and commissioning agents. The year 1853 saw the building of a new Customs House at the lower end of Queen Street. As a result, John Harris sold the South Brisbane premises and moved the shipping business to North Brisbane, occupying the wharf and lower store built originally by Mr Richardson, below the new Customs House.

John Harris and his family left for England in December 1853 leaving 22-year-old George in charge of the business. In early 1854 he oversaw the building a stone store in Short Street with a riverside frontage close to a wharf, which, on an 1865 map of Brisbane, is called Harris’ Wharf. The modern building known as 1 William Street has been constructed over where Short Street once ran, between Margaret and Alice Streets.

John Harris and his family returned to Brisbane in December 1856 but did not stay, returning to London in January 1858 to set up J & G Harris as an agency in London to facilitate trade between Brisbane and London. This gave George free reign to expand the business with the inclusion of a tannery, fellmongery, boot and harness factory, situated on 52 acres (21.4 hectares) with Kedron Brook flowing through much of it.

In October 1860, George had married Jane Thorn, the daughter of George Thorn MLA of Ipswich, linking him to one of the founding families of the Ipswich area. In another sign of his growing prosperity, George leased Newstead House, the former Government Residency occupied by Wickham, in 1862. In 1865 he employed local architect George Cowlishaw to repair and redesign Newstead, resulting in much of the house that can be seen today. In 1866, Harris used Cowlishaw again to design ‘Harris Terrace’, on George Street. The rents from these six residences allowed Harris to purchase Newstead House, which then became one of the centres of the social scene in Brisbane, hosting many distinguished guests including H.R.H Duke of Edinburgh in 1868.

The 1860s were a good decade for George. His appointment by Governor Bowen to the first Legislative Council of Queensland (the Upper House), on 23 May 1860, was a sign of his standing in the community. He continued to take every opportunity to establish himself in the business world. Taking advantage of the demand for other sources of cotton during the American Civil War (1861-1865), George set up a processing plant in Ipswich and in 1864 built a two storey brick store for housing the product. He also expanded the firm’s shipping interests by establishing a fleet of river and coastal craft.

The warehouses and wharf in Short Street played a major role in the development of the Queen’s Wharf area over the next twenty years. By 1862, the warehouses were bonded stores. That same year Harris decided to begin trading with the Clarence River Districts in competition with merchants based in New South Wales, something that was applauded in the newspaper report of the time. By 1868, the Harris enterprise was sending as much as 1,000 bales of wool, 50 casks of tallow and 500 hides in one shipment to London. In 1869 George Harris applied to extend the wharf in front of the Short Street allotments 1-4, on which the warehouses stood, by 30 feet (9.1 metres) into the river. This was approved and the result, shown on an 1896 survey map, dwarfs the Pettigrew and Victoria wharves upstream.

As shipping agents J and G Harris were strongly linked to immigration in the early 1870s. Ships such as the Indus with 475 immigrants, the Star Queen with 352 immigrants and the Juliet with 459 immigrants all arrived at the Harris’ wharf in 1873-74 period. Close to the William Street Immigration Depot, their wharf was an ideal location for the disembarkation of new arrivals.

Always looking to expand in new businesses, in 1872 George purchased a one-twelfth share in a coal mine in Gympie for £350. He already had shares in the Blue Mountain Tin Mining Company and the Potosi Silver Mining Co. Ltd (which failed) and was a partner in a gold prospecting venture at Enoggera. That same year the Supreme Court appointed George as official liquidator of the Bank of Queensland. His salary consisted of £200 each year, as well as 5% of all monies he collected.

Other of his involvements in the commercial life of Brisbane included election to the committee of the Chamber of Commerce (1874), followed by his appointment as Chairman in 1875. He was appointed a member of the Marine Board, also in 1875.

Yet all was not well. In early August 1876, John Harris filed for insolvency in London. The debt was listed as £300,000. George Harris filed for insolvency at the Supreme Court in Brisbane on 30 August 1876. According to newspaper reports at the time, this was not unexpected as the firm had not been taking on new contracts and most of their workers had been let go. As it was understood most of the debt was in London, it was hoped it would not affect other businesses in Queensland too greatly.

The case was heard in the Supreme Court in Brisbane from October 1876 to April 1877. A certificate discharging George Harris as bankrupt was granted on 3 April 1877. As a result, George lost all his business interests including the warehouse in Short street and the business in Ipswich. He resigned from the Legislative Council. Harris Terrace was returned to the mortgagee, James Taylor, who also bought Newstead House, where Harris and his family had been living since 1862. Taylor, then made it available for Harris to lease.

George Harris had not waited for the court decision before he began trading as George Harris & Co. in September 1876. He re-established his business interests by opening another scouring and fellmongery business in South Brisbane. He became the agent for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (later known as P&O) and also became a Commission Agent advertising cash, credits and advances of money from his premises at 178 Queen Street. During the 1880s Harris was the Queensland Consular Agent for the United States, Italy and Belgium at various times.

Throughout, Newstead House remained the Harris family home. All of George and Jane’s children were born at Newstead. The eldest, Kate May, died at age three months in 1862 and the youngest, a boy, was stillborn in 1868. Of the four surviving children it was the two girls, Edith Maud born on 10 December 1865, and her younger sister, Evelyn Jane born on 7 March 1867, who are best remembered. Edith married George Condamine Taylor JP, the second son of James Taylor, the ‘King of Toowoomba’, on 28 August 1883 at St John’s pro-Cathedral on William Street in a service performed by Archdeacon Glennie. Evelyn married Richard Gardiner Casey MLA on 23 May 1888 at St John’s pro-Cathedral, the service again performed by Archdeacon Glennie. Their son, Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey (Baron Casey), was Governor-General of Australia from September 1965 to April 1969.

The Harris’ lived at Newstead House for a total of 27 years, maintaining their position as leading lights of the Brisbane social scene. George and Jane Harris left Newstead in April 1890, following a big flood the previous month when the flood water was described as reaching from Newstead House right into Fortitude Valley. In April 1890, under the instructions of the trustees of Mrs George Harris the entire contents of the house were put up for auction. The newspaper reports of the auction show how lavish their life style had been. They moved to Bankside, North Quay, where George died suddenly on 28 March 1891.

Additional Reading

Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for George Harris

Members of the Binstead family were part of the group of first owners of land at Queen’s Wharf,  obtaining title to Lot 3 and Lot 4 after they were first offered for sale in 1850.

The Binstead family came from Sussex in England. Arthur Binstead, born in 1781, was a sawyer, as was his son George, born in 1812. For their involvement in the Swing Riots in England, when agricultural machinery was vandalised, both were sentenced in 1831 to fourteen years in Van Diemen’s Land.

After their local village raised the money for passage, the two men were joined in 1834 by Arthur’s wife Maria and three of the younger children. Arthur and Maria’s son, John (born 1810), was already in New South Wales having been transported in 1832 for burglary.

In 1837, Arthur and George Binstead were granted free pardons, and they moved to NSW to join John. Arriving at Moreton Bay in 1842, Arthur Binstead was amongst the town’s first post-convict period arrivals. He established a sawpit operation at the lower end of Queen Street, assisted in this work by sons Arthur (1819-1851) and William Alfred (1821-1903) who had joined their father. The business appears on the 1844 map of Brisbane as ‘Bensteads, sawyers’. The connection of this family to the Queen’s Wharf area is through Arthur’s sons, William Alfred (1821-1903) and Arthur jnr. (1819-1853).

There is no record of when William Alfred, Arthur jnr. or their older brother John Binstead, and their respective families, arrived in Brisbane, however, all three of these young men are reported to have subscribed to the Brisbane Anniversary Regatta in January 1848.[1] The Binsteads took part in two races. Their Dundee Lass came second to John Petrie’s boat in the first race. They won the fifth race with their boat Pirate.

Some confusion surrounds the Binstead purchases of Lot 3 and Lot 4 in the small subdivision between Queen’s Wharf and Margaret Street, that area bounded by William Street and the Brisbane River. At a land sale on 3 July 1850, William Alfred Binstead (1821-1903) purchased Lot 3 for £45 10s. However, the Certificate of Title on Lot 3 dated August 1851 shows his nephews, William (1841-1920) and Arthur (1843-1927, known as Long Arthur) as co-owners of the land.  The sons of Arthur and Henriette Binstead, both were young boys at the time.[2] At the July 1850 land sale, James Buckland is recorded as purchasing Lot 4 for £42 14s. A Certificate of Title, also of August 1851, lists William Alfred Binstead as the purchaser of Lot 4 for £42 14s.

The Binsteads established saw-pits on the lots as well as building one, possibly two cottages and several sheds. Their business came under pressure from the first steam run saw mill built by William Pettigrew on the adjacent Lot 2, closer to Margaret Street. Pettigrew believed the Binsteads and two other sawyers were responsible for burning down his mill in 1855. In his diary, written in 1900, he recalled watching several sawpits on land around him and claimed that the men met in Binstead’s house to plot the fire[3].

Although William Alfred Binstead owned land at Queen’s Wharf, he was also one of the first settlers in the Upper Coomera District. Family history records indicate that his fourth daughter, Charlotte, was born at Coomera in 1853. History also records the death of William Alfred and Mary Binstead’s fifth daughter, Harriet, then a toddler of 17 months, died in 1857 in Brisbane in a fire accidentally lit by a candle[4]. Eventually Coomera became the family’s principal place of residence.

The only other information about William Alfred Binstead and the land on William Street comes from formal documents for Lot 4. At an unknown time, lot 4 was leased to William and Robert Pettigrew who stored their milled timber on the site.

After the lease expired, William Alfred Binstead took out a mortgage with the Commercial Company of Sydney. In 1884 William Alfred, then listed as a sugar manufacturer of Coomera River, obtained another mortgage from the South Australian Land Mortgage and Agency Co. Ltd for £8,000, with his son-in-law John Howard as co-mortgagor. William Alfred Binstead and the South Australian Mortgage Co. repaid the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney outstanding monies from the earlier mortgage and obtained a release. By 1887, William Alfred Binstead was in default of the interest payments on the mortgage. As a result, the land was seized by the South Australian Land Mortgage Co. According to the Certificate of Title issued to them in 1888, Lot 4 was valued at £6,600, occupied only by Abraham Street, a feather dyer who paid a weekly rent on a cottage on site.

Financially, the times were boom and about to go bust. The South Australian Land Mortgage Co requested the Registrar General to issue a Certificate of Title to William and Robert Pettigrew who had already paid the company £1,320 and taken a mortgage with them for a further £2,280. However, Pettigrew’s business suffered badly in the floods of 1893 and 1898. Pettigrew filed for insolvency in July 1898. Lot 4 was presumably taken back by the South Australian Land Mortgage Co and finally transferred to the Government in 1908.

Of Lot 3 there is no formal documentation other than the original title document. Indications are that the land remained in the hands of brothers William and Arthur Binstead, both of Coomera. Correspondence held in the Southport Library reveals that in 1907 the estate agent Cameron Bros. was trying to persuade them to sell the land for £2,250. In his reply Arthur makes it clear they have the land under offer at a better price.[5] In 1908 the State Government purchased the land, presumably this was the better offer.

[1] Moreton Bay Courier, 29 January, 1848, p. 2.

[2] With the death of their mother in 1852 and their father in 1853, the boys were orphans, though cared for by other members of the large Binstead family.

[3] Brown, Elaine. William Pettigrew 1825-1906: Sawmiller, surveyor, shipowner and citizen: an immigrant’s life in colonial Queensland. PhD thesis, University of Queensland, 2005. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:189814

[4] Moreton Bay Courier, 16 May, 1857, p. 2.

[5] Copies of these letters are held in the Local Studies section, Southport Branch Library, City of the Gold Coast, manuscript number LHM5150.

Arthur Frank Bell is included on the Department of Agriculture First World War Roll of Honour Board in the former National Trust House in William Street.

Arthur Bell was born on 9 November 1899 in South Brisbane. He was educated at Ipswich Grammar School and in 1916 joined the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock as a junior assistant in the Agricultural Chemical Laboratory. Having completed four years of senior cadets and 6 months in the Citizens Force, he enlisted in the Australian Infantry Force on 19 December 1917. Although his father, Frank Bell, lived in Laidley, Arthur Bell gave his address as c/- Agricultural Chemist, Brisbane.

Arthur Bell was assigned to No.1 Depot Enoggera and then to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade based at the Rifle Range Camp. He was granted three days leave to visit his parents in Laidley, before leaving for Sydney and the army camp at Liverpool. Whilst at the Liverpool camp, Bell was diagnosed with Tachycardia, a faster than normal heart rate when at rest. After consideration, the Medical Review Board returned him to his unit, the 34th Reinforcement Field Artillery. He held the position of gunner.

With his brigade, Bell embarked at Sydney on HMAT Port Darwin on 30 April 1918, proceeding via Suez and Alexandria to the United Kingdom. Bell fell ill with influenza and was hospitalised at St Germain, France. He eventually arrived in England on 9 July 1918. He was sent to the Reserve Brigade Australian Artillery (RBAA) camp at Heytsbury in Wiltshire, which had been set up to train reinforcements arriving from Australia and re-train those evacuated from the front due to sickness or wounds. Arthur Bell would have been there when George V went through the camp on 16 September 1918.

Finally, on 17 October, Bell embarked for France where he joined the 12th Field Artillery Brigade at Rouelles. Ten days before peace was declared he was transferred to the 46^th Field Artillery Battery. It is unlikely he saw any action since the last major Australian involvement was on 5 October, when the taking of Montbrehain village finally broke the Hindenberg Line.

Arthur Bell remained in France, being promoted to Trench Bombardier on 30 March 1919. He finally left France for England on 20 May. Having been granted leave with pay to study at the Manchester College of Technology between late June and early September 1919, Arthur Bell departed England on HT Port Darwin on 25 September. He was discharged in Brisbane on 11 December 1919 nearly two years to the day after he enlisted.

Bell returned to the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock and studied part-time through the University of Queensland, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in 1925. The previous year he had won a sugar research travelling scholarship. He went on to obtain his Master of Science from the University of California in 1926 and a diploma of membership of Imperial College, University of London, in 1927.

In 1928, Bell was appointed plant pathologist to the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations where he remained until 1947, becoming acting-director in 1943 and director in 1945. His time at the Bureau is associated with the now notorious cane toad.

Whilst attending the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists conference at Puerto Rico in 1932, Bell learned of the beneficial effects of the cane toad on cane beetles in Central and South America. At the same conference was Dr Cyril Pemberton of Hawaii, who was so impressed with the toads he arranged for their shipment back to Hawaii. It was from Hawaii in 1935 that R. W. Mungomery, assistant entomologist of the Bureau, obtained the first 100 toads to be imported into Queensland. They were taken to the experimental sugar station at Meringa to be bred, before being released into the surrounding area. Even in 1935 concerns were raised that the toads might become a worst pest than the rabbit, but Queensland cane growers fully supported their use.

Any controversy over the cane toads did not seem to have affected Arthur Bell’s career. Following a review he had helped to carry out in 1944, the Department of Agriculture and Stock was radically reorganised and Arthur became under-secretary in 1947, the first qualified scientist to hold the post. He was active in the agricultural scientific community, belonging to several professional bodies, and in 1948 became president of the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science (AIAS) and a fellow in 1958. He was awarded the A.I.A.S medal in 1954 and the Farrar medal in 1956. In 1958 Arthur Bell died at his desk in the Department of Agriculture.

The A. F. Bell Memorial Medal for agricultural science has been awarded annually at the University of Queensland since 1959 by the Queensland branch of the A.I.A.S.

Additional Reading

1. National Archives of Australia (Service Record of Arthur Bell)

One of the quieter characters who for a time worked in the Queen’s Wharf area was Government Botanist, Frederick Manson Bailey. From 1899 until 1912, Bailey occupied various rooms in what had been the former Immigration Depot, the building that from the late 1890s housed the Department of Agriculture.

FM Bailey with his parents and brother arrived in South Australia from England on 22 March 1839. His father, John Bailey, had been appointed Government Botanist and Curator of a Botanic Garden which the then Governor, Colonel Gawler, wished to establish. When this enterprise failed, John Bailey and his two sons established the Hackney Nursery.

Frederick Bailey moved with his new family to New Zealand for two years before arriving in Brisbane in 1861. He established a seed store in Edward Street and also collected botanical specimens for sale to Britain and Europe. In 1875 the Government set up a board to inquire into the cause of disease in livestock and plants in Queensland and Bailey was appointed to the board as botanist. As a result of this work he published two books, An Illustrated Monograph of the Grasses of Queensland and Handbook of Queensland Ferns.

In 1881 Bailey was appointed Colonial Botanist, a position he continued in until his death. When space was allocated in the office of the Department of Agriculture in William Street in what was the former Immigration Depot, Bailey established the Museum of Economic Botany and Herbarium. At its most expansive the Museum occupied 3 sizeable rooms, the largest contained 50 display frames containing wood veneers, mosses, lichens, and seaweeds and rows of glass cases containing medicinal and economic barks, plants, seeds, and fruits. In addition there were 160 specimens of Queensland grasses and 500 wood specimens cut in book form and polished. These had been shown at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition in 1888, duplicates having earlier been displayed at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London in 1886.

According to newspaper articles and the memories of his grandson, CT White, Bailey was a quiet retiring man not given to standing up for himself even when it meant retrenchment during Public Service cut backs. He was, however, always willing to give advice when it was requested by farmers, graziers or any other member of the public. A slightly different view of Bailey was given by friends who accompanied him on two and three day trips into the surrounding bush looking for new specimens. They reported him as being ‘as good at giving or taking a joke as anybody, one of the mainsprings of our mirth’.

Bailey continued to publish throughout his life. His main works were Fern World of Australia 1881; Queensland Flora 1899-1902 in 6 volumes; and Comprehensive Catalogue of Queensland Plants 1912, in addition to many articles published in the Queensland Agricultural Journal. He died at Kangaroo Point on 25 June 1915.

Additional Reading

• Australian Dictionary of Biography
• Brisbane Courier, 11 November 1896, p. 4.
• Journal of the Historical Society of Queensland, vol. 3, 1944, pp. 362-383.
• Queensland Country Life, 1 March 1905, pp. 10-16.
• Queenslander, 3 May 1890, p. 845.

The stock inspector, Gilbert Samuel Birkbeck DSO, heads the list of 92 names on the Roll of Honour in National Trust House, the building that for a century was the head office of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock.

Born in Brisbane on 15 March 1876, GS Birkbeck was married and working in Mackay as a stock inspector at the outbreak of war in August 1914. He was also the officer commanding the 27th Light Horse Regiment (LHR). Along with 25 men from this group, the 38 year old Lieutenant Birkbeck headed for Brisbane early in September to enlist. He was posted to C Squadron of the 2nd Light Horse Australian Imperial Force (AIF), promoted to captain and embarked for Egypt.

At Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli, Captain Birkbeck was injured in the right eye and later the right arm, injuries which healed while he was on two months leave in England. Returning to the Middle East in May 1916, the now Major Birkbeck was seconded to a training regiment.

In March 1917 Major Birkbeck was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for ‘conspicuous gallantry in action. He displayed great initiative and excellent leadership in moving his squadron over most difficult country round the enemy left flank thereby materially assisting in the defeat of the enemy and preventing any escape’. Within a month he was convalescing again.

Late in 1917 Gilbert Birkbeck returned to the desert, specifically to the Desert Mounted Corps, following staff training. He was stationed at Beersheba. Thereafter, Birkbeck periodically assumed command of the regiment during the absence of its commander, Lt. Colonel GH Bourne. He returned to Australia in March 1919.

After World War 1, Gilbert Birkbeck went back to work as a stock inspector, stationed at Mackay, Gympie and then Toowoomba in the interwar years. He retained his connections to the Light Horse, as a Lieutenant-colonel commanding the 47th Batallion between 1928 and 1933. Retiring to Toowoomba in 1942, Gilbert Birkbeck died on 15 December 1947.

The Roll of Honour in National Trust House is unable to be accessed during the construction work being undertaken for the Queen’s Wharf Integrated Resort Development.

Additional Reading

• Australian Dictionary of Biography
• National Archives of Australia (Service record for Gilbert Birkbeck)

Additional Image

Acknowledgments:

• Australian War Memorial B00525
• NAA: B2455, BIRKBECK G

Richard Kingsmill Pennefather Moore MC had been a stock inspector for the Department of Agriculture and Stock for eighteen months when he enlisted at Toowoomba on 11 January 1915. The son of Lt Col (R’td) Richard A Moore, a prominent Queensland civil servant, Richard Moore was appointed to the 11th Australian Light Horse Regiment (LHR). He saw action in Gallipoli with the 11th LHR before a transfer to the 2nd LHR on 29 August 1915.

He was part of the general Gallipoli evacuation, arriving in Alexandria, Egypt, on 26 December 1915. Here he re-joined the 11th LHR. During his time in Gallipoli, Richard Moore was promoted from Private to Sergeant to Squadron Sergeant Major. On 1 July 1916 he was seconded to the Imperial Camel Corps and promoted to 2nd Lieutenant. He remained with one or other of the Camel Battalions until July 1918.

It was while he was with the 3rd Anzac Camel Battalion in Palestine that he was awarded the Military Cross. On 6 November 1917, British and Australian forces were fighting to take the wells at Khuweilfeh from Turkish control. Moore, by that time a Lieutenant, was serving as Intelligence Officer to the Battalion and before dawn, while under heavy fire, managed to get close enough to the Turkish positions to obtain information which assisted the Battalion in taking the wells later that day.

Moore was detached to the Desert Corps Cavalry School in July 1918 for a month then went back to his unit, before moving to the 15th LHR in November 1918. He arrived back in Australia early in 1920.

Richard Moore returned to work at the Department of Agriculture and Stock. In the late 1920s he took up an offer to manage an ex-German Plantation in the Australian Mandated Territory, New Britain. In 1942 he was captured by the invading Japanese forces and placed on board the Montevideo Maru to be taken to the Chinese island of Hinan. The ship was sighted by the American submarine Sturgeon and torpedoed on 1 July 1942, with the loss of 1,054 prisoners, a number that included Richard Moore. The ship was not marked as a POW vessel.

The Roll of Honour in National Trust House is unable to be accessed during the construction work being undertaken for the Queen’s Wharf Integrated Resort Development.

Additional Reading

1. National Archives of Australia (Service Record for Richard Moore)

Acknowledgment:

Australian War Memorial image B01195